


Overwhelmed

by amtrak12



Series: Tolbert Kiss Meme [2]
Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, background polybusters, background toltzmann
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-28 00:33:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10059320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amtrak12/pseuds/amtrak12
Summary: Patty takes a moment to breathe after Holtzmann gets hurt on a bust. Erin finds her.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the Tolbert kiss meme I'm doing. This was written way back in October and I'm just now getting around to posting it. Whoops! Prompt was: a forehead kiss when I'm sad.

Patty excused herself upstairs the moment they got back from the hospital. She headed right up for the study on the third floor that, amongst other things, held the spillover from her record collection that she never really had room for at her apartment yet had bought anyway. Despite being a common space meant for escaping the noise of the lab or taking naps, it had become known as 'Patty's room'. It was this kind of privacy that she was banking on now.

She left the light off when she got there and walked over to sink heavily on the couch Holtzmann had discovered on one of her dumpster dives. She took a deep breath.

Holtzmann had gotten hurt. Seriously hurt, hospital hurt, walking around with a cast on her arm now hurt.

Patty still couldn't figure out what happened. The bust had seemed fine. Not quite the simple zap and trap they've experienced a string of lately, but they'd certainly dealt with worse. Giant evil clip-art wrecking the city comes to mind.

The only real difference between this bust and their last few was this building had been haunted by a trio of ghosts. Some old gang by the looks of them, seemingly from the late 1800s sometime; Patty would have to look into it later. They were unruly yet frighteningly in sync with each other, and had a penchant for throwing things. The team had been attacked from all sides, and when they'd chased after the leader, Holtzmann had slipped behind. It left her vulnerable for one of the ghosts to literally rip the rug out from under her feet and no one had been around to catch her. 

And now she had a cast on her arm. Broken humorous -- fractured, no surgery or nothing required, thank goodness, but man. It was the first time any of them had wound up in the hospital, and Patty could _feel_ that, feel its weight across her shoulders, and it was suffocating.

She took a deep breath in. Held it.

She shook when she breathed out.

A tap at the door and a quiet "Patty?" interrupted the dark silence. Patty closed her eyes against Erin's presence.

"Sorry, I'll be down soon. I just need a minute."

"I know." But she didn't leave. Patty heard light footsteps move into the room, and each one just made her grow more tense.

"She's going to be fine," Erin said.

Patty huffed and snapped, "Man, I know that. I heard everything the doctor said too. I know she's fine."

Erin didn't respond. It took exactly two seconds for Patty's frustration to give way to guilt at her tone. She ran her hand over her face. 

"Look, can you please just give me a minute?"

Erin's feet didn't move. "Abby's brainstorming ideas with Holtz: equipment modifications, possible shielding or a bomb even -- not a real bomb. Just something that we can deploy in a building before entering that will disrupt ectoplasmic activity."

Patty dropped her hand and finally looked up at her. Erin was hard to see in the darkened room backlit by the hall light. She was more silhouetted than anything. "What help's that gonna be?"

"It'll weaken the ghosts." Erin stepped forward, seeming to think Patty looking up was an invitation to do so. Patty didn't bother with stopping her. "Like how exterminators bomb houses to kill pests, but it would only affect the ectoplasmic activity so the ghosts wouldn't be able to fully corporealize -- or at least they wouldn't be as powerful when they did."

Patty watched Erin take the last few steps and sit down beside her on the couch. She couldn't tell where Erin was going with all of this or why she felt Patty needed to know it right this minute instead of just letting her be, but she didn't have any energy left to protest.

"It would stop them from being able to throw things at us," Erin finished.

Patty shook her head and dropped her gaze. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Leave it to them two to start working the minute they're out of the damn hospital." She sighed.

"She got overwhelmed," Erin said. Patty swung her gaze back up to her, and Erin continued, "That's what she admitted to downstairs."

Patty frowned. "Holtzy?"

"Yeah." Erin nodded. "Apparently with all the stuff being thrown around," (she started using her hands to demonstrate), "and the ghosts coming from all directions, it was all just kind of...." Her hands settled, and she shrugged. "She got overwhelmed. That's how she fell behind."

Patty let this news sink in. Overwhelmed didn't mean the same thing for Holtzmann as it did with the others. It didn't mean a momentary lapse in focus or a barrage of stress that can be handled after a short breather. It meant senses overloaded, neurons misfiring, and Holtzmann left frozen, unable to act. She'd seen it happen a couple of times, the first being the showdown in Times Square during Rowan's invasion. Patty didn't think much of it at the time, figured it was all a normal reaction to being attacked by dozens of hell ghosts at once, but the better she got to know Holtzmann, the more she realized Holtz reacted to everything just a little bit differently than the rest of them. An explanation had never been given, but Patty had some ideas. (She was pretty sure Abby had ideas too, if not knew outright.)

Speaking of....

"Holtzmann told you this?" she asked Erin.

Erin shook her head. "No, she told Abby. I had stepped away. I don't think she realized I could still hear her."

Yeah, that made more sense. Holtzy still didn't like admitting weaknesses, especially in front of a crowd (even if that 'crowd' was only the team).

Patty stared down at the nothing towards the floor. Her thumb fussed with the skin of her other hand. Goddamn, this day had been a nightmare. Rowan had been easier -- nah, that wasn't actually true, but it sure felt that way just now. There hadn't been time to wallow in anything that day, just jumping from crisis to crisis. Unlike those hours spent waiting around at the hospital with Holtzmann quiet and pretending she wasn't wincing every few seconds.

She felt Erin put her arm around her shoulders. "It's going to be okay. We have a plan."

"That anti-ectoplasm pest bomb thing?" Patty said.

"It's not really anti-ectoplasm, so much as it disrupts the bonding of the--" Patty raised her eyebrow, and Erin stopped. "I'll explain it later. Yes, the pest bomb plan."

"I think I like that shield idea better," Patty said. "Just stick a big ol' proton shield bubble around her that ghosts can't get through."

Erin tilted her head. "I don't think Holtz would go for that." Then, she smiled. "But Abby knows the equipment well enough to build it by herself."

"Good." Patty chuckled. Then, she let out a heavy sigh and leaned her head down on Erin's shoulder. Erin kissed her forehead and rubbed her back.

"At least, it was only a broken arm," Erin said.

"Mm mmm," Patty hummed in the negative and shook her head against Erin's shoulder.

"At least, we have a plan?" Erin tried again.

"Yeah, stick with that."

Erin squeezed her shoulder and kissed her head again. "Holtzmann's okay, and we have a plan. Everything's going to be okay."


End file.
